The company takes water from rivers, reservoirs at Ardingly and Arlington, and underground sources (aquifers) under abstraction licences issued by the Environment Agency.

[4] In 2021/2022 South East Water’s CEO, David Hinton, received a base salary (not including bonus, pension contributions and other benefits) of £271,620.

Speaking to Kent Live, Greg Clark, MP for Tunbridge Wells and former Cabinet Minister, said: “I have spoken every day with the chief executive of South East Water, David Hinton.

I wish I could tell you that I am confident that reliable supplies will be resumed imminently, but I’m afraid I can’t.”[9] Mr Clark later described the leadership of South East Water as “deficient” in a crisis situation [8] Mr Clark confirmed that he had raised the issue in The House of Commons, asked the government to intervene, and further described South East Water's approach to resolving the crisis as "unacceptably bad and in some instances chaotic.

"[8] Further mass outages affected customers in June 2023, with several schools across Kent and Sussex being forced to close as a direct result of the lack of water supply.